Are Graham Linehan and Lucy Connolly the right pin-ups for an issue as important as Freedom of Speech? Naomi Smith and Alex Andreou discuss whether absorbing a universal right into a polarised culture war serves anyone's interests.

ALSO, we take a deep dive into the shallow waters of the Reform UK party conference.

PLUS with musical offerings galore during conference season, we give our best karaoke tips.

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“I would suggest to genuine free speech champions out there, who are worried about the overreach of current legislation, that Lucy Connolly and Graham Linehan are not the right pin-ups. Absorbing such a serious issue into a culture war is not the right strategy. If you end up dying on a hill over those posts, your movement has a problem.”

“None of this is keeping women safe. It’s certainly not keeping women who are quite masc-presenting safe. We have heard multiple stories of women being challenged just for going to the toilet, since the Supreme Court ruling, on the basis of what they look like. I just think that a lot of people have forgotten how to behave.”

“Dorries is both very high profile and a nobody. Not an MP or a peer or someone with any role in the party. One could legitimately that leading councillor in a big local authority defecting to Reform is more consequential. But she does straddle that world between politics and celebrity and is therefore a significant scalp.”

“We’ve done a big piece of work segmenting the Reform voter base. We found five distinct groups. Immigration ties them all together, but they differ widely in other areas, especially tax and spend, which creates some difficult traps for Farage.”

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With Naomi Smith, Alex Andreou and Kenny Campbell – in cahoots with Sandstone Global.

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